


Desperate Measures

by Brumeier



Series: Atlantis Medical Group [5]
Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Alternate Universe - Hospital, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, Hostage Situations, M/M, Medical Examination, POV Outsider, Prompt Fill
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-15
Updated: 2018-01-15
Packaged: 2019-03-05 01:35:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,798
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13377339
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Brumeier/pseuds/Brumeier
Summary: LJ Comment Fic for Lasts prompt:Stargate Multiverse, any, last chanceIn which a desperate father takes the pediatric office hostage on the day Marie is there filling in.





	Desperate Measures

**Author's Note:**

> Also written for Whatif_AU prompt: workplace

Marie wasn’t a superstitious person, but that didn’t mean she was unaware of the different ways to draw down bad luck. A hearse had crossed her path on her way to work to fill in at AMG for another nurse, and that should’ve tipped her off that things weren’t going to go well. 

“I don’t want to hurt anyone!” the man with the gun said. 

Marie didn’t believe him. He had a manic look in his eyes and he was twitching all over like he was on something. She was more concerned with the little boy he had clutched to his side, who was sallow and thin, his eyes sunken and bruised-looking. 

“That’s good,” Dr. Sheppard said. He was the head of Peds at AMG, an attractive man with spiky hair and a scrub top decorated with footballs. “I don’t want you to hurt anyone either.” 

The gunman had come in just minutes ago, brandishing his weapon and forcing everyone into the waiting room. Marie had done a quick headcount: two other nurses, Dr. Sheppard, a mother with two small children, a teenaged boy on his own, another mother with an infant; ten souls, if she counted herself. Twelve, with the gunman and the boy. Dr. Patel would have been there, too, but he’d slipped out moments before the gunman arrived to do a coffee run. 

Marie had positioned herself between the teenager and the mother with the baby, where she felt she’d be most needed. 

“What’s your name?” Dr. Sheppard asked. “I’m John.” 

“Are you the doctor? Are you in charge?” 

“Yes, I am. And I’d really like to know your name.” 

The gunman had his back to the door, which he’d made Dr. Sheppard lock. The hand holding the gun was shaking. 

“Ethan.” 

“It’s nice to meet you, Ethan. Who’s that you have with you?” 

“My son. Kyle. He’s sick.” 

Dr. Sheppard nodded. He got down on one knee, and Marie had the crazy thought that he was going to surrender somehow, but he’d only done it to get on eye level with the boy. 

“Hi, Kyle. How you doing, buddy?” 

Kyle just blinked back at him and pressed closer to his father, and it was interesting that he didn’t seem to be afraid of the man. Marie surmised that the son’s ill health was the motivating factor for the father, and his illness had to be something quite serious for Ethan to have brought a gun into a pediatrician’s office. 

The phone on the intake desk started to ring, startling Marie. She looked at Dr. Sheppard, who was in turn looking at Ethan. 

“I should get that,” Dr. Sheppard said. “It might be the police. You don’t want to ignore that call, Ethan. They need to know everything’s okay in here.” 

“Put it on speaker.” 

Marie wondered how Dr. Sheppard stayed so calm. He moved with deliberate slowness, obviously not wanting to startle Ethan, and leaned over the counter instead of going around behind it. 

“Pediatrics. This is Sheppard.” 

_John, it’s Rodney. Is everyone okay?_

“You’re on speaker, Rodney. And yes, everyone is doing just fine.” 

_I’m with Bates and Detective Shane. What can you tell us?_

Marie flicked a glance at the camera mounted on the ceiling. Mr. Bates was the head of security, which meant Dr. McKay was watching them on the security feed. 

“We have a very worried dad here. His son is sick.” 

“We’ve been to every hospital in two states!” Ethan shouted out. “And every single doctor we see gives my son a different diagnosis, puts him on medication, and he doesn’t get any better! The last asshole we saw had the nerve to suggest the problem is mental. My son is dying and no-one will help him!” 

The desperation in his voice was almost palpable and, despite the fact that he was holding a gun on them all, Marie felt badly for him. She didn’t have any children of her own, but she could imagine how terrible it must be to get the runaround like that. 

Unfortunately, it wasn’t an unusual circumstance. Doctors didn’t always consider the concerns of the parents, and many parents were too intimidated to assert themselves with their doctors. 

_You came to the right place_ , Dr. McKay said. _Not to brag, but I’m the foremost diagnostician in the country. I can tell you what’s wrong with your son._

“Rodney,” Dr. Sheppard said warningly. 

“Get him in here.” Ethan swung the gun up. “Now.” 

“No. No-one else comes in as long as you have that.” Dr. Sheppard looked pointedly at the gun. 

_Let’s all just settle down. I don’t need to be in the room, but I do need to stay on the phone. Sheppard, you can walk me through a physical exam. Get me samples of everything: nasal swab, throat swab, blood, urine, stool if you can manage it._

"As long as Kyle's dad lets me, I can get you everything you need." 

_Great. Maybe Kyle's dad would also like to let some of those people go. You don't need to keep children in there._

Ethan looked over at his hostages. The mother with the baby was crying, completely silently, and the boy was shaking under Marie's arm. 

"Ethan," Dr. Sheppard said, drawing his attention back. "I'm going to have to take Kyle into an exam room. You won't be able to watch everyone. Why don't we just let them go and then we can get started." 

Marie held her breath, and sent up a little prayer that the man would comply. It was a terrible thing for children to be frightened that way. 

"Yeah. Okay. Everyone can go." 

Dr. Sheppard unlocked the door and had a brief word with everyone as they filed out, especially the little kids and the teenager. He was definitely one of the good ones. 

"You, too," he said to Marie. 

"You'll need someone to assist," she replied. "I'll stay." 

It wasn't that Marie wasn't as scared as everyone else, because of course she was. But she couldn't leave Dr. Sheppard there on his own with a distraught father. If anything happened...well, she'd never forgive herself. 

Before Dr. Sheppard could argue, Ethan made him lock the door back up. Now it was just the four of them. 

"Rodney, we're going to exam room three. Once I log in you can video conference, and see everything I'm doing." 

_I'm ready when you are._

Dr. Sheppard led the way, Marie following closely behind him. When they got to exam room three, which was decorated with spaceships and an artistic rendering of the solar system, he swiped his fob over the key reader on the computer and washed his hands before he gently picked Kyle up and sat him on the exam table. 

Marie scrubbed up as well, and pulled on a pair of gloves. While Dr. Sheppard began the routine exam – checking the boy's ears, his breath sounds, his blood pressure, his reflexes – Marie pulled out everything else they'd need from the locked cabinets and put them on the rolling tray. 

Dr. Sheppard called out the boy's stats as he collected them, for Dr. McKay's benefit. His concerned face filled a small square in the bottom corner of the monitor, which Marie had adjusted to give him a better view of the proceedings. She also manually typed in Kyle's stats, starting a file on the boy like he was any other patient. 

"How long has Kyle been sick?" Dr. Sheppard asked Ethan. 

"Over a year. It started with nausea and stomach pains. They put him on laxatives, made him do those cleanses where you can't eat solid food for a day." Ethan hovered in the doorway, gun pointed at the floor. He was still very twitchy, and Marie suspected he was sleep deprived as well. 

"What other symptoms does he have?" 

Ethan rattled off a disturbingly long list of symptoms and the meds that had been prescribed for them. That was a real danger of acting before a proper diagnosis had been made, because there was no telling if a medication would do more harm than good. 

Marie was proud to be a nurse, glad that she could help people in her own small way. But she also knew that medicine wasn't an exact science, even though people wanted it to be. Sometimes it took a long time, and a lot of tests, to make a definitive diagnosis. Some ailments remained a mystery. 

Dr. Sheppard was very methodical in his examination, all the while doing his best to keep Kyle comfortable and at ease. He went into the bathroom with him to get a urine sample, and then had Kyle get undressed. The boy's pale skin was covered in bruises. 

"I know how it looks," Ethan said defensively. "But I didn't do that! He just bruises really easily right now." 

Marie exchanged a look with Dr. Sheppard. It wasn't beyond the realm of possibility that they could be dealing with Munchausen by Proxy. Some parents made their children sick, even poisoned them, to get attention. If Ethan was that unstable there was no telling what he might do. 

_I'll need at least four vials of blood_ , Dr. McKay said from the monitor. _I don't think he can spare more than that_. 

Marie was a certified phlebotomy technician, so she did the blood draw. She thought that, more than anything else, would get a reaction from Kyle, but the boy was alarmingly lethargic. She filled four vials, labeled them neatly, and then gave Kyle some apple juice. 

_Mr. Bates is coming with one of the lab techs to get the samples. Leave them by the door._

Ethan stood in the doorway of the examination room, keeping one eye on Dr. Sheppard and one on Marie as she wheeled the tray to the office door and left it just to the side. Mr. Bates had a master key. Marie was almost back in the exam room when she heard the lock disengage and saw the young, nervous-looking lab tech reach in and take the tray. 

"Now what do we do?" Ethan asked. 

Dr. Sheppard helped Kyle put his clothes back on. "Now we wait. It'll take time to run all the samples and get results back, and then Dr. McKay will need to analyze them." 

They ended up back in the waiting room, with some bottles of water and snacks pilfered from the employee lounge. Kyle fell asleep before he could eat much, his head pillowed on his father's leg. 

Dr. Sheppard leaned forward in his chair, elbows on his knees. "Ethan. I know you're worried about Kyle, and understandably so. But you don't need that gun anymore. The tests will be run. We'll figure out what's wrong." 

"No. If I give it up they'll take me away. I'm not leaving Kyle, not until I know you can help him." 

"I can talk to Detective Shane," Dr. Sheppard insisted. "We can arrange for you to stay with Kyle, in custody, until we have a definitive diagnosis." 

"No!" Ethan brought the gun back up and pointed it right at Dr. Sheppard. Marie bit her lip so hard it started to bleed. 

Technically, Ethan didn't need either of them anymore. It was all in Dr. McKay's hands now. If he realized that would he shoot them? He certainly wasn't going to give up the gun, which was his only leverage. 

Dr. Sheppard reached over and put his hand on Marie's knee, squeezing just a little. "Okay, we won't do that. Just calm down, Ethan. We only want to help you." 

Time seemed to crawl. Ethan didn't want to talk to anyone, and he didn't want Marie and Dr. Sheppard talking to each other. Marie tried to look through one of the magazines they kept out for waiting parents to read, but she couldn’t focus on the words. 

"Where are those results?" he shouted after they passed the hour mark. Kyle twitched in his sleep. 

"It's not like on TV," Dr. Sheppard explained patiently. "These things take time. You want the results to be accurate, right?" 

"You better not be playing me!" 

"No-one's playing you." 

_Ethan? It's Dr. McKay. We've gotten some of the results back and I'm starting my analysis. Stop threatening my staff, it's very distracting and you don't want me distracted right now._

Another twenty minutes passed, and Kyle started twitching more. Dr. Sheppard, who'd been keeping a close watch, was out of his chair and across the waiting room in a second. 

"He's seizing!" 

Ethan brought the gun back up but Dr. Sheppard literally batted it out of the way. He picked Kyle up and set him flat on the floor. Marie pulled off the sweater she wore over her scrub top and used it to cushion Kyle's head. She counted the seconds as his body jerked. 

"Help him!" Ethan shouted. 

"There's nothing to do but ride it out," Dr. Sheppard said, jaw clenched, and for the first time Marie could see just how thin his patience was getting. 

"I counted fifty-two seconds," Marie said when Kyle's body finally went limp. 

"Rodney, give me something!" Dr. Sheppard snapped. 

_I think I've got it. I just need to run a cross-check._

"Run it fast." 

Dr. Sheppard kept his fingers on Kyle's wrist, monitoring his heart rate. Marie could tell by the look on his face that it wasn't good. It felt like the situation was spiraling out of control, especially with the way Ethan was pacing around the room, free hand clutching at his hair. 

For the first time Marie wondered about Kyle's mother. Where was she? Ethan clearly felt he had no alternatives, no-one to turn to. Maybe they were divorced. Or she'd passed away. If Kyle was the only family Ethan had, of course the prospect of losing him would be devastating. And if that happened on Dr. Sheppard's watch...well, Marie had a pretty active imagination. She felt like she might be sick, and pressed her lips together, the bottom one throbbing where she'd bitten it. 

_I've got it! He needs an IV push of Voriconazole, as well as broad spectrum antibiotics!_

"Rodney, that's not --" 

_He has Singer-Hauptmann's._

Marie had no idea what that was, but Dr. Sheppard's forehead wrinkled up. "Singer-Hauptmann's? There hasn't been a reported case of that in seventy years." 

_Well, I'm reporting one now. There's an ambulance standing by to take the boy to the hospital. If we get him started on treatment immediately, there's a chance we can save his life. I've already contacted Elizabeth._

Marie looked at Ethan, who was looking down at his son. 

"You can really save him?" 

"We really can," Dr. Sheppard said. "But we have to go _now_." 

Ethan laid his gun down on the reception counter and laced his hands behind his head. Everything happened very quickly after that. Mr. Bates unlocked the door and the police took Ethan into custody. EMTs came with a gurney and loaded Kyle up for the ride to the hospital, and Kyle's aunt was there to ride with him. Marie gave a statement to the police and so did Dr. Sheppard. Dr. McKay stormed in talking a mile a minute on his phone, to the staff at the hospital judging by his half of the conversation. 

"Thanks for your help, Marie," Dr. Sheppard said when the police left. He looked as exhausted as she felt. "You really went above and beyond today." 

"So did you." Marie gave him a hug, and then went to collect her things from the lounge. She was going to go home and take a long, hot soak in the bathtub. And quite possibly drink a little too much wine. 

When she returned to the waiting room Dr. McKay was hugging Dr. Sheppard while simultaneously scolding him. 

"We never had armed gunmen in here before I hired you, I want you to know that. This is all your fault." 

"That really sucked," Dr. Sheppard said, his voice muffled against Dr. McKay's neck. 

"You scared me, you asshole." 

"Yeah. Me, too." 

Marie had heard the rumors about Dr. Sheppard and Dr. McKay, and it seemed they were true. She was glad that Dr. Sheppard wouldn't have to be alone, though he was already talking about going to the hospital since Kyle was technically his patient and he wanted to oversee his treatment. 

She slipped out the door and headed for the elevator. Her hands were shaking, just a little, and she thought maybe she'd go to her sister's instead. She didn't want to be alone either. 

In the morning she'd go to the hospital herself and see how Kyle was doing. His father had taken desperate measures to get help for his son, and Marie sincerely hoped they'd pay off.

**Author's Note:**

>  **AN:** Full disclosure: I don't work in the medical field. At all. I've pretty much fabricated this whole story out of Google searches and my own imagination. And I made up Kyle's disease, because lazy. ::grins::


End file.
